I just watched the boys of the Fox25 Morning News grousing because Pixies made the top ten of Boston Magazine's "Boston's 50 Most Influential Rock Songs." VB, the blowhard who cut his teeth in broadcasting on "The Howie Carr Show," claimed that his ears bleed whenever he thinks about it.

'Course, he seems to believe that Aerosmith's late work was underrepresented.

I generally don't give him enough thought to have him cause me harm. If he actually had opinions that went beyond lame and repetitive shots at liberals and/or state government, then I might notice. As it is, he barely manages as Howie Carr Lite.

I just don't see Tyler and company as particularly interesting or innovative, but then, 1970's-style guitar rock has never been a passion of mine. Pixies experimented all over the map, and brought to bear everything from pure noise to haunting melody.

disappointingly, i think most people like to listen to things that sound familiar and are put off by anything that pushes the boundaries. that's the only reason i can figure for traditional radio even surviving at this point. everyone on mainstream radio sounds like somebody else. there is no innovation.

that said, i think what i find wierdest here is that this guy thinks aerosmith's recent stuff should be included. i think aerosmith did make some really great music back in the 70's - "Dream On" is one of my all time favorites in that ouevre, and their work with Run DMC was very groundbreaking at the time, but the stuff from the last 15 years is mostly rehashed crap.

'Course, it's this music industry null state that is often cited as one of the motivations for piracy - i.e. Why pay for an album full of crap when there's only one good song on it? I've mixed feelings on the piracy issue, but I think the industry has cut its own throat with its insistence on manufacturing a particular kind of entertainment instead of promoting artists, by charging too much for a shoddy product, and by being very slow to adapt to available technologies.

I remember finding Rocks in my Uncle Hyde's lp collection when I was a kid, and I liked it just fine. I'm really not sure I can get behind a call for their more recent stuff to be anywhere near the top 50. To me, it's like claiming that the Stones' Waiting on a Friend is more important than Sympathy for the Devil.

yeah, that's some serously crazy shit. i really wish teh Stones would just retire- i do think it's just become a bit of a joke at this point. sometimes i'm just baffled. i mean aerosmith's more recent stuff has probably sold more albums than the early stuff because they are established as known artists and whatnot, but my understanding was that the list was for influential bands, and to me that means bands who pushed the boundaries of musical expression to new places. the new aerosmith is popular precisely because it maintains their formula for success without breaking new ground.

the industry isn't so much interested in new places - it's not their bag. the industry promotes a package meant to make money, it has nothing to do with art. i think anymore they rely on the fact that there are actual artists out there innovating and that eventually those innovations will seep into the popular medium. so often artists are said to be ahead of his or her time because some asshole will find his or her ideas and coopt them into some pop trash that sells a million copies. in a way it's the industry folks who are the pirates in my opinion.

i'm pretty mixed on piracy too though. i don't feel bad for the huge bands like metallica who've already earned and wasted millions of dollars, but i do worry about independent artists just trying to scrape by not being able to protect his or her work. with my own music, i don't seek to profit from it in the first place and while i suppose it would piss me off to hear one of my songs on the radio under someone else's name, i doubt that my music is that palatable to begin with, and it's a risk i'm willing to take to enable people to hear my stuff. i know we live in a capitalist society, but it kinda rubs me the wrong way to think about art being a for profit enterprise, but i still think that intellectual property is an important issue (and folks do gotta eat too).